1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a side mirror cover for covering a side mirror body provided projectingly from the side of the vehicle, and a side mirror body.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, a vehicle is provided with sideways projecting side mirrors on both sides of the vehicle body as well as a room mirror provided in the interior of the vehicle for a driver to look behind for traffic. These mirrors ensure that the driver has a clear view to the rear of the vehicle without turning his/her head toward the rear. Although the room mirror and the side mirror are standardized according to the type of vehicle, the side mirror being partly responsible for the appearance of vehicle are figured to satisfy the sense of beauty. The side mirrors for passenger vehicles are mainly mounted on the doors, and figured to satisfy the sense of beauty considering the total appearance of vehicle. Further, there is a need for ornate side mirrors depending on the taste of consumers because of recent diversification of the taste of the consumers.
At the front end of the vehicle, there are provided position lamps for allowing oncoming cars or the third parties walking on the street to recognize the width of the vehicle at night as well as direction indicator lamps for indicating the turning directions of the vehicle and headlamps as an illuminating device for nighttime driving. The oncoming cars or the third parties walking on the street can recognize the width of the vehicle from the position lamps and the turning direction of the vehicle from flickering of the direction indicator lamp. The oncoming cars or the third parties walking on the street ensure the safety by driving or walking while avoiding contact with the vehicle.
On the other hand, since the position lamps in the related art are provided at the front end of the vehicle, there is a problem in that the width of the vehicle body at the front end of the vehicle can be recognized, but the width of the entire vehicle including the side mirrors cannot be recognized. In other words, since the side mirrors are provided on the vehicle body so as to project sideways from the vehicle body, the width of the entire vehicle including the side mirrors is larger than the width indicated by the position lamps. Therefore, the oncoming cars or the third parties walking on the street are required to estimate the width of the entire vehicle by adding the estimated amount of projection of the side mirrors to the width indicated by the position lamps. However, since the amount of projection differs depending on the type of vehicle, it is relatively difficult to estimate. Especially, such estimation is much more difficult in the case of vehicles having side mirrors that project sideways to a large extent from the vehicle body, such as heavy-duty trucks.
In order to solve these problems, a side mirror cover including a mirror cover body adapted to be capable of being mounted on the front surface of the side mirror body of the vehicle and a side mirror lamp mounted on the mirror cover body so as to be visible from the front of the vehicle is proposed (Japanese Patent No.3030021). When forming the covers into complex configurations, or coloring or plating on the side mirror covers, high value-added side mirror covers are achieved at a lower cost than the case of forming or processing the entire side mirror into such configurations, since such side mirror covers are adapted to be attached independently on the front surface of the side mirror body. Furthermore, when the side mirror lamps mounted on the mirror cover bodies are illuminated, the positions of the side mirrors are visible from the front, and thus the width of the entire vehicle including the side mirrors can be recognized.
However, since a plurality of the light emitting elements is aligned in a row and are covered with a single lamp cover in the side mirror lamp of the side mirror cover described above, the intended use of the side mirror lamp is disadvantageously limited to one or the other of the direction indicator lamp or the position lamp. In other words, when some of the plurality of the light emitting elements is used as a direction indicator lamp and the remainder of the light emitting elements are used as a position lamp, since the lamp cover is a single body, illumination of the light emitting elements for one of those usage is liable to be misidentified as illumination for the other usage, and thus the intended use cannot be clearly differentiated.